12 comments:

I just tried that Rush Poker, and it was interesting, and (well) fast.

But it may be too fast for people physically sitting at a table. Once they fold (they have to wait for their turn to fold - can't jump ship with the Quick Fold), they have to physically get up, move to the next table, set up chips, and go... and hope that (s)he and all the rest are at the correct table.

Electronically, it seems to work fine - kudos to the folks who thought this out and the programmers who put it together. And thanks to you for pointing it out to us!

I think that it would have to go hand for hand. When the blinds go up, the players who make quicker decisions will have got to see many more hands than those who are slower.

The random big blind could really kill you to. I just tried rush poker on Full Tilt last night at the NL10 tables and there was a few times when my seat was along the lines of SB, SB, BB, SB, BB. If your 'M' was only around 10, that could seriously cripple you.

It works so long as stacks are deep and blinds are low - like a cash table :-)

... once people start getting shortstacked and/or the field gets smaller and smaller, you run into the problem of, "ohnoes, I might be in the big blind the next hand" and find people shoving much earlier than they normally would - which would actually make the average donk play more optimally in those spots...

Then you would have the issue of those that openfold quickly would see more hands than those players that take more time between hands..

Not to mention the obvious bubble angles people would take advantage of.

I haven't tried it yet, but from what I've read it sounds like the idea only works because of the large pool of players. With a tournament, that pool would be constantly shrinking, leading to longer waits for the next hand. And then you'd get to the final table and it'd be the same as regular hold'em.

Although... the final table could be interesting. In a normal tournament, when you get to the final table you've only "seen" a few players at your table. In a rush poker tournament, you'd probably see a ton of them, even if only for a hand or two. So there's a good chance you'll have a small amount of data on each final table player in your HUD.

The whole thing is premised on having a large pool of players so that there is always enough players to get another goinjg immediately. In a tournament you will eventually get down to a small enough pool of players where this slows the game down

It would seem that the only issue would be paying "more than your fair share" of blinds when you are short stacked. This would not be unfair (this effect would be expected to even out over time) but might make the game unpopular as getting blinded off in this manner would likely be unpleasant.

It would be a great way for an online poker room to allow for a ton hands in a tournament and probably slim down a huge number of tournament entries. This would work until there is a point where folding and moving to a new table would be slowed down due to not having enough players to start a hand immediately. Remember, you can't be moved to a new table with anyone who was already at your table and no one at your table can know you have already folded until it is your turn.

Once it gets to a smaller field, you could switch back to a regular, super turbo format until the tournament is over. I think this mixed style could be interesting. I had thought about it the first night I tried Rush Poker and I'm glad someone else was thinking about it. I can guarantee you they were/are thinking about it too...

As already pretty much stated, it would work just fine at the beginning of a large tournament. You could shuffle people around just fine as long as there is a short time limit. It would be come quite cumbersome if people start stalling. As I write this it occurs to me that it would almost have to be played hand for hand like a shoot out to work. Hm. Maybe I need to think more about this...

About Me

It's a little hard to say this, because I'm not used to it yet, but I suppose that I'm a professional poker player. I moved to Vegas intending to get a job as a poker dealer, but while waiting to get hired, I spent the days playing poker instead of dealing it, and soon found that I was able to keep the bills paid. So I've just kept on doing it. I play Hold'em exclusively, usually no-limit, and most commonly $1-2 or $1-3, with occasional forays into $2-5 territory. I play tournaments on-line once in a while, but for some reason that I haven't entirely figured out, I'm much more successful playing at casinos than on the Internet, and much better at cash games than tournaments.
You can contact me via email: it's rakewell1 at yahoo dotdotdot com.